#220 Manuel Araoz: Zeppelin and the Evolution of Smart Contract Development

Zeppelin Co-Founder and CTO Manuel Araoz joined us to discuss his journey from building one of the first non-financial Bitcoin applications in 2012 to improving development and security practices for Ethereum smart contracts. We discussed the OpenZeppelin framework, a library of audited smart contracts as well as their new project zeppelin_os. Through on-chain, well-vetted and upgradeable smart contracts zeppelin_os aims to make developing Ethereum applications both easier and more secure.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Manuel’s journey in the blockchain space from proof of existence to BitPay to Streamium to Zeppelin

Why Manuel moved away from a pure Bitcoin focus to working on Ethereum

Why Zeppelin focuses on smart contract security

How smart contract security evolved since the start of Ethereum

The OpenZeppelin framework of audited Ethereum contracts

Why zeppelin_os and standardized, upgradeable on-chain contracts are the next evolutionary step

The core component of zeppelin_os: Kernel, SDK and markeplace

The ZEP token and its role in zeppelin_os

Links mentioned in this episode:

Support the show, consider donating:

This episode is also available on :

Watch or listen, Epicenter is available wherever you get your podcasts.